Just when you thought you couldn’t get enough, here is one last post on all things Art Basel. While I did not attend the week’s festivities, I’m not the only writer to report on the event without ever setting foot on the sands of Miami.

It turns out my clumsy conjecture may not be so off point after all. Things didn’t look good for Art Basel, but it was not the funeral everyone predicted, as this Indian Reuters article suggests. In these other websites, its not so clear what is going on. I like the clean design of this site, which mentioned Miami Art Basel. After checking out the link, I was not really sure what this website was about. Then I realized its a fashion blog and these darlings had the pleasure of attending the festivities at some point in the past week. If this is the future of fashion, then I’m scared. I didn’t get anything out of this site at all.

In my art coverage, I was also directed to the Take Part website for their Miami Art Basel 2008 coverage, which is yet another one that is new to me.

During a stint as a travel writer a few years ago, I was interested in Macao and since 1999, when China gained control over it and made it a special administrative region, it has become the Las Vegas of the far east, when it had been a formerly Portuguese colony since the 16th century. I don’t imagine that the buzz has quite really caught on, but Contemporary Art is working on creating a foothold there. Is this a future site for Art Basel? Are we going to keep the ocean theme? How about inviting the SEA SHOW for a multi-disciplinary art performance and roundtable discussion? :-> I came across a page for a gallery in Macau that had links to archives of previous exhibitions in my search for images of Contempory Art in China .

When I look at a painting, especially one by a local artist who I might know personally, I cannot help but think of the Salon de Refuses, which was set up for the famous impressionists who gave so much to modern art, as they were repeatedly turned away from the Salon. In a broader light, I can’t help but think of Art Basel in the same light. So many that purchase and influence descisions about art don’t create it themselves, and so its almost inconceivable that they would buy art from an unknown and undervalued artist, or and do whatever can to help them. I don’t think the art world has worked like that since the Rennaissance, if ever.

Paintings by Dr. JohnnyWOW!

When I see a painting in front of me by a talented local artist, I see a Manet in the works, and the art is precious to me, because of the effort of the art. If it weren’t like artists who I know first hand who would create art even if they were homeless or you would think there was no way for them to create, find a way. And I think its beautiful. If there is a collector like that out there, please let me know.I have to say, I do applaud the efforts of the man trying to help MOCA. But imagine if everyday artists had access to that. What would happen? Surely something more exciting than the uninspiring reports I am reading from Miami Art Basel.